704 Handbook of Nature-Study 



size of a grain of wheat. But it is safe to say that the pigeons and other 

 birds enjoy our own kind of wheat better than this, which is attributed to 

 them. 



A study of one of these wheat grains reveals it as covered with a yellow- 

 ish, mohair cap, ending in a golden brown peak at its tip, as if it were the 

 original pattern of the toboggan cap; it closes loosely and downily 

 around the stem below. This grain is the spore-capsule of the moss; the 

 hairy cap pulls off easily when seized by its tip. This cap is present at the 

 Very beginning, even before the stem lengthens, to protect the delicate 

 tissues of the growing spore-case ; it is only through a lens that we can 

 see it in all its silky softness. The capsule revealed by the removal of the 

 cap is a beautiful green object, usually four-sided, set upon an elegant 

 little pedestal where it joins the coral stem, and with a lid on its top like a 

 sugar-bowl cover, with a point instead of a knob at its center. When the 

 spores are ripe, this lid falls off, and then if we have a lens we may see 

 another instance of moss mechanism. Looking at the uncovered end of 

 the capsule, we see a row of tiny teeth around the margin, which seem to 

 hold down an inner cover with a little raised rim. The botanists have 

 counted these teeth and find there are 64. The teeth themselves are not 

 important, but the openings between them are, since only through these 

 openings can the spores escape. In fact, the capside is a pepper-box with 

 a grating around its upper edge instead of holes in its cover; and when it 

 is fully ripe, instead of standing right side up, it tips over so as to shake 

 out its spores more easily. These teeth are like the moss leaves; they 

 swell with moisture, and thus in rainy weather they, with the inner cover, 

 swell so that not a single spore can be shaken out. If spores should come 

 out during the rain, they would fall among the parent plants where there 

 is no room for growth. But when they emerge in dry weather, the wind 

 scatters them far and wide where there is room for development. 



When seen with the naked eye, the spores seem to be simply fine dust, 

 but each dust grain is able to produce moss plants. However, the spore 

 does not grow up into a plant like a seed, it grows into fine, green, branch- 

 ing threads which push along the surface of damp soil; on these threads 

 little buds appear, each of which grows up into a moss stem. 



The spore-capsule is hardly the fruit of the moss plant. If we examine 

 the moss, we find that some stems end in yellowish cups which look almost 

 like blossoms; on closer examination, we find that there are several of 

 these cups, one below the other, with the stem extending up through the 

 middle. The upper cup matured this year, the one below it last year, and 

 so on. These cups are star-pointed, and inside, at the bottom, is a starlike 

 cluster of leaves. Among the leaves of this star-rosette are borne the 

 moss anthers called antheridii, too small for us to see without a high 

 power microscope. The pollen from these anthers is blown over to other 

 plants, some of which produce ovules at their very tips, although the 

 ovule has no leaf-rosette to show where it is. This ovule, after receiving 

 the pollen, grows into the spore-capsule supported on its coral stem. 

 These — stem, capsule and all — grow up out of the mother plant, the red 

 stem is enlarged at its base, and fits into the moss stem like a flagstaff in 

 the socket. After the star-shaped cup has shed its pollen, the stem grows 

 up from its center for an inch or so in height and bears new leaves, and 

 next year will bear another starry cup. 



